#1 Miami, Fla.

The housing crisis has devastated Miami with 47% of homeowners sitting on underwater mortgages. Foreclosures have been rampant with 364,000 properties in the Miami area entering the foreclosure process since 2008 according to RealtyTrac.

Florida Prosecutor Indicted For Falsifying Arrest Warrant against George Zimmerman

Florida State’s Attorney Angela Corey has been indicted by a citizens’ grand jury, convening in Ocala, Florida, over the alleged falsification of the arrest warrant and complaint that lead to George Zimmerman being charged with the second degree murder of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.

The indictment of Corey, which was handed down last week (see http://www.citizensgrandjury.com), charges Corey with intentionally withholding photographic evidence of the injuries to George Zimmerman’s head in the warrant she allegedly rushed to issue under oath, in an effort to boost her reelection prospects. At the outset of this case, black activists such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who whipped up wrath against Zimmerman, demanded that he be charged with murder, after local police had thus far declined to arrest him pending investigation.

The good news: Jay Carney lied said this week that the Obama administration has created 7.2 million private-sector jobs since it took office. The bad news: 15 million more Americans are on food stamps (SNAP).

“And what is absolutely true is that we have come a long way since the depths of the Great Recession. We’ve created over 7.2 million private sector jobs,” Carney told reporters at a press briefing.

Here’s what Mr. Carney didn’t say:

At the end of January 2009, 32,204,859Americans received aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. As of April 2013, there were 47,548,694Americans on food stamps. [SNAP: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program]

There are 15 million more Americans on food stamps today than when Obama assumed office.

That means that more than two Americans have been added to the food stamp rolls for every one job the administration says it has created.

If you happened to be like vacationing IRS official Lois Lerner and are ‘not good at math‘, 15 million is more than twice as much as 7.2 million. Hence, the ‘two more people on food stamps’ than ‘found jobs’ stat.

In addition, 2.5 million of the ‘jobs created’ to which Carney referred are part-time; as a separate figure, 2.7 million of those ‘jobs created’ are temps, a 50% increase over Obama’s time in office.

Furthermore, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 154,526,000 in the Civilian Labor Force in February 2009 and in June 2013 there were 155,835,000. That would be a net gain of 1.309 million more people working civilian jobs. The labor force participation rateof 63.5% is hovering at the lowest levels since late 1978.

Judge: State lawsuits cannot block Detroit bankruptcy filing

Federal courts will decide if Detroit is eligible for what would be the largest municipal bankruptcy ever, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, suspending challenges to the Chapter 9 filing in state court.

Detroit’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr—a bankruptcy expert appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder earlier this year to oversee Detroit’s finances—has said the federal bankruptcy filing is necessary to get the city out from under some $18 billion in liabilities.

But the city’s employee unions argued the bankruptcy is an end-run around the state constitution, which protects their pension benefits. The unions backed a series of lawsuits filed in Michigan courts to block the bankruptcy. Last week, Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina ruled the bankruptcy filing unconstitutional, but a state appeals court put her ruling on hold, and Orr argued the federal court should make that stay indefinite.

The emergency manager said bankruptcy is a federal matter. A bankruptcy filing normally puts all other litigation on hold, but Orr’s office asked the judge to extend that automatic stay to cover him and state officials, including the governor. Orr’s attorneys acknowledged the request was unusual, but said “recent events”—the lawsuits in state court—made it necessary.

“That kind of activity has got to stop,” city attorney Heather Lennox said. Lennox is a partner at Jones Day—Orr’s former law firm—which is collecting millions of dollars in legal fees from the city.

But attorney Sharon Levine, representing the local council of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, said the federal bankruptcy code “is not there to enforce rights that do not exist.”

The unions said framers of the Michigan constitution decided to guard public employee pensions because public pensions have no insurance protection, unlike private pensions, which are insured by the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp.

“Here, there is no safety net,” Levine said. She said nonuniformed employee pensions in Detroit are below $19,000 per year.

Attorney Robert Gordon, representing the police and fire pension funds, argued that because of the constitutional provision, the governor had no right to authorize the bankruptcy filing in the first place. As a result, Gordon said, the filing is “void,” and it was premature to even be discussing it in federal court.

“How do you deal with the law that gives the bankruptcy court exclusive jurisdiction,” Rhodes asked.

Gordon responded that there was no need to deal with the provision, because there was no valid bankruptcy filing to begin with.

Because of the intense interest in the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, the hearing was moved from Rhodes’ normal courtroom to a much larger one across the street at the Theodore Levin Federal Courthouset. Many members of the public and the media were relegated to an overflow courtroom down the hall to view a video feed.

Outside the courthouse, a handful of protesters carried signs in support of the unions. One demonstrator played a recording of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech through a megaphone.

City firefighter Mark Jackson.said he came to the courthouse because so much is at stake.

“I am scared. Scared that I will lose my retirement. I’m scared for all of us,” Jackson told CNBC.

But Orr and Snyder have repeatedly insisted that city pensions will not be cut entirely under a bankruptcy. In an interview before the hearing, Orr said the majority of the pensions are funded, but there remains a $3.5 billion shortfall—and the city has no way to make it up.

Special Ops Group of Over 1,000 Unroll 60-Foot Petitition Demanding Answers on Benghazi

Special operations veterans unveiled a 60-foot petition demanding answers about the siege of a diplomatic compound and murder of four servicemen in Benghazi, Libya on the anniversary of 9/11 last year.

Special Operations Speaks PAC unveiled the petition with Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) and other Congressmen near the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. late Tuesday afternoon. It bore the names of 1,000 special operations veterans seeking the truth about what happened the night of the Benghazi attack.

The Republican House leadership is under renewed pressure to allow a vote on legislation that would create a special committee to investigate the Benghazi, Lybia, terrorist attack in September that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Rep. Steve Stockman is circulating a discharge petition that would force House Speaker John Boehner to allow a floor vote on forming a Benghazi select committee, according to The Hill.

While partisan Democrats may want the Benghazi investigation to close, and for America to “move on,” there are several remaining questions. Even though Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer claimed it was “irrelevant” where President Obama was the night of the attack, that is, in fact, a crucial question. As Commander-in-Chief, he bears direct responsibility for command decisions.

As former Ambassador Ann Wagner related, thepresident is responsible for ordering troops and other military assets to “stand down” during an attack on a diplomatic compound.

That is because it is protocol to attempt a rescue operation by launching an in extremis rescue force (as anyone who has worked in a bureaucracy knows, there are Standard Operating Procedures for everything; superiors dictate when not to follow SOPs).

Indeed, a disturbing comparison of the CIA and Pentagon timelines put together by Jennifer Griffin makes clear that CIA assets were ready for deployment and were told to wait before attempting a rescue operation… twice. The eventually slain CIA servicemen Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were told to stand down and not even attempt to rescue Ambassador Stevens, who had met with the Turkish consul earlier that night.

Now removed General Carter Hamsent an unarmed drone to the Benghazi compound 17 minutes after he was notified of the attack; however, the ordering of armed military aircraft must come from the president, and the Libyan government unequivocally stated that it received no such flyover request that entire night.

This adds weight to the testimony of former former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta that reveals that no serious rescue operation was even attempted. Panetta’s testimony avers that the president was absent after his initial briefing on the situation, and cross-examination by Senator Lindsey Graham makes clear that no serious military assets were dispatched to Benghazi for over eight hours.

While there are some complacent-minded people who are used to waiting for the federal government to act in emergency situations, and thus cannot grasp why this is such a big deal, this is neither the American way, nor the military code to leave people to die this way. You do not leave men behind when you can act. And clearly, the Commander-in-Chief did not act.

By all accounts, President Obama took a briefing, departed for his evening sojourn, and awoke lithe and sprite for his Vegas fundraiser the next day. He even cancelled his attendance of a State Department announcement of the terrorist attack scheduled for the next day. Partisan Democrats can howl all they like, but this is flat-out unacceptable. The American people deserve, and many of them demand, serious answers.

The White House’s behavior shows that it is not interested in people getting the truth about the attack. It promoted disgraced U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to National Security Adviser, after either incompetently, or more likely, dishonestly telling the people repeatedly there was a demonstration in Benghazi over an offensive YouTube video the night of the Benghazi attack. State Department emails that were revealed in the mainstream media directly contradict the Obama administration’s absurd talking points after the obvious terrorist attack.

The State Department earlier had the hubris to state it may not comply with a Congressional subpoena for documents pertaining to a Benghazi investigation. And it was recently claimed by Congressman Frank Wolf that Benghazi witnesses were silenced by the State Department through their signing of NDAs — Non-Disclosure Agreements.

The media is absent on such matters; and this is not a partisan tiff. President Obama is being granted pass after pass — he has been found to be unaccountable for his policies at double the rate of previous presidents.The president should answer for being AWOL when he should have been fulfilling his prime directive — protecting the American people (not campaigning).

And for Jeb Bush to offer a “Liberty Medal” to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton one day before the upcoming anniversary of the Benghazi attack — that is a despicable mockery of Liberty and the American people. Due to Mrs. Clinton’s inaction, the diplomatic consul that came under siege was in dire need of more security in the former warzone (that would be the war that President Obama got America involved in without Congressional authorization). Stevens begged for more security, and was turned down by Clinton’s State Department (and yes, there were available funds for that).

As Townhall noted, “murdered US Ambassador Chris Stevens’ second in command, Gregory Hicks, was instructed not to speak with a Congressional investigator by State Department lawyers.” Hicks’ testimony before Congress indicates a clear attempt to silence him and he was then punished at the State Department for ostensibly no other reason than telling the American people his side of the story about what happened. More ‘sides of the story’ like Hicks’ need to come out for the public to get a fuller picture of what went down before, during and after the deadly terrorist attack at Benghazi.

But to quote Hillary Clinton and partisan Democrats: What difference, at this point, does it make? If one might be permitted to answer, it is the character of the United States government and the military’s commitment to its troops that are on the line. If you cannot grasp that, you are not fit for public service.

President Obama made his fourth or fifth, or maybe it’s the seventh or eighth, pivot to the economy on Wednesday, and a revealing speech it was. We counted four mentions of “growth” but “inequality” got five. This goes a long way to explaining why Mr. Obama is still bemoaning the state of the economy five years into his Presidency.

The President summed up his economic priorities close to the top of his hour-long address. “This growing inequality isn’t just morally wrong; it’s bad economics,” he told his Galesburg, Illinois audience. “When middle-class families have less to spend, businesses have fewer customers. When wealth concentrates at the very top, it can inflate unstable bubbles that threaten the economy. When the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther apart, it undermines the very essence of this country.”

Then the heart of the matter: “That’s why reversing these trends must be Washington’s highest priority. It’s certainly my highest priority.”

Which is the problem. For four and a half years, Mr. Obama has focused his policies on reducing inequality rather than increasing growth. The predictable result has been more inequality and less growth. As even Mr. Obama conceded in his speech, the rich have done well in the last few years thanks to a rising stock market, but the middle class and poor have not. The President called his speech “A Better Bargain for the Middle Class,” but no President has done worse by the middle class in modern times.

By now the lackluster growth figures are well known. The recovery that began four years ago has been one of the weakest on record, averaging a little more than 2%. And it has not gained speed. Growth in the fourth quarter of 2012 was 0.4%. It rose to a still anemic 1.8% in the first quarter but most economists are predicting even slower growth in the second quarter.

We hope the predictions of a faster growth in the second half will be right, but the Obama Treasury and Federal Reserve have been predicting for four years that takeoff was just around the corner. Stocks are doing great, and housing prices are rising, but job growth remains lackluster. What has never arrived is the 3%-4% growth spurt during typical expansions.

The official excuse is that recoveries coming out of recessions caused by financial crises are always slow. But then why have we been told every few months for five years that faster growth would soon be coming? Perhaps readers recall former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s famous 2010 op-ed, “Welcome to the Recovery.” Mr. Obama wants it both ways: Take credit for recovering from recession, but blame that recession ad infinitum for the slow pace of the recovery.

What about the middle class that is the focus of Mr. Obama’s rhetoric? Each month the consultants at Sentier Research crunch the numbers from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and estimate the trend in median annual household income adjusted for inflation. In its May 2013 report, Sentier put the figure at $51,500, essentially unchanged from $51,671 a year earlier.

And that’s the good news. The bad news is that median real household income is $2,718, or 5%, lower than the $54,218 median in June 2009 when the recession officially ended. Median incomes typically fall during recessions. But the striking fact of the Obama economy is that median real household income has fallen even during the recovery.

While the declines have stabilized over the last two years, incomes are still far below the previous peak located by Sentier of $56,280 in January 2008. No wonder Mr. Obama is now turning once again to his familiar political narrative assailing inequality and blaming everyone else for it. He wants to change the subject from the results on his watch.

The core problem has been Mr. Obama’s focus on spreading the wealth rather than creating it. ObamaCare will soon hook more Americans on government subsidies, but its mandates and taxes have hurt job creation, especially at small businesses. Mr. Obama’s record tax increases have grabbed a bigger chunk of affluent incomes, but they created uncertainty for business throughout 2012 and have dampened growth so far this year.

The food stamp and disability rolls have exploded, which reduces inequality but also reduces the incentive to work and rise on the economic ladder. This has contributed to a plunge in the share of Americans who are working—the labor participation rate—to 63.5% in June from 65.7% in June 2009. And don’t forget the Fed’s extraordinary monetary policy, which has done well by the rich who have assets but left the thrifty middle class and retirees earning pennies on their savings.

Mr. Obama would have done far better by the poor, the middle class and the wealthy if he had focused on growing the economy first. The difference between the Obama 2% recovery and the Reagan-Clinton 3%-4% growth rates is rising incomes for nearly everybody.

House Republicans have put a check on Mr. Obama’s most destructive economic policies, but the President could do more to help growth if he crossed party lines to pass tax reform the way Reagan did in his second term, or to work out a budget deal as Bill Clinton did in his fifth year.

Mr. Obama’s only pro-growth proposal is immigration reform, and we’re not sure he wants even that to pass. Judging by the partisan tenor of his Wednesday speech, he may be setting it up to use as a campaign wedge in 2014. If only Mr. Obama understood that before a government can redistribute wealth, the private economy has to create it

My sociopolitical persuasion has been conservative since I can remember.

Even during the 50’s in Cuba, with a political scenario where to be a conservative was an oddity, and all the parties were “populist” “revolutionary”and “progressive” boarding with socialist ideas, my ideas were always conservative.

So you may imagine what I think of all government regulatory agencies, they are a pain in my behind.

Specifically, I consider the Food and Drug administration. an agency responsible, with its over regulation, for the high price of drugs and the cause that many persons have died because they do not have access to new drugs which are not approved, buried in the bureaucratic jungle and red tape of the agency, that prevents the approval of the drug..

But I have to welcome the new regulations of the FDA regarding the industry of the so called “Natural Remedies” that are advertised like “Magical Cure Drugs” when they are just dietary supplements.

The essential vitamins your body needs can all be found in readily-available foods, so a proper diet is all we need to supply our body of the necessary vitamins.

But we are all sinners when it comes to a proper diet.

So Dietary supplements and vitamins are necessary.

The problem is when these products are advertised as magic cures for major ailments, like Thyroid, Heart condition, Diabetes and others.

When the public self-medicate based on these misleading advertising, they procrastinate their visit to the doctor, don´t get the proper medications, and when they go to the doctor sometimes it is too late.

Because dietary supplements are basically harmless, the FDA has neglected the industry needed regulations.

It is necessary to regulate this industry and their false advertising.

It is necessary to stop the bullshit. (Excuse my French, but I couldn’t find another word)

This article by Thomas M. Burton in the Wall Street Journal, tells us about certain products that are illegally advertised as a “cure” for diabetes which are in some cases dangerous.

WASHINGTON—The Food and Drug Administration is acting to stop U.S. sales of nearly two dozen products marketed as diabetes treatments that the agency said are illegal and can be ineffective, counterfeit or in some cases dangerous.

The FDA cracks down on 15 companies’ dietary supplements and “natural cures” for diabetes, saying the therapies don’t work, can be dangerous and, in some cases, include undisclosed and counterfeit prescription drugs. Tom Burton reports. .

The federal agency sent warning letters to the companies involved and said it could follow up by seizing the products, enjoining their sale and even criminally prosecuting firms whose officials fail to take corrective action.

The products include dietary supplements, self-styled “natural treatments,” and ayurvedic medicines, part of an alternative health system that evolved in India and includes herbs and special diets. The drugs involved also include unapproved versions of prescription diabetes medicines such as metformin and Januvia.

The products can be found both on the Internet and at retail outlets, and make claims such as being a “natural diabetes cure.”

“If you have diabetes, you should be getting treatment from a doctor,” said Howard Sklamberg, director of compliance at the FDA’s center for drug evaluation and research. He said that the FDA was taking actions to “protect consumers,” and that the agency recommends people not use the products in question.

One of the products involved, Anti-diabetic Pancreatic Capsule (known in the original Chinese as Jiang Tang Yi Huo Su Jiao Nang), included phenformin. It was removed from the U.S. market in 1978 because it was linked to lactic acidosis, a serious condition requiring immediate medical attention caused by an accumulation of lactic acid in the bloodstream. The FDA didn’t identify the company that makes this current diabetes product.

The FDA said the products covered in warning letters might not only be ineffective; they might be contaminated or cause people “to delay seeking proper, timely treatment, leading to an increased risk for developing serious health complications.”

FDA/Associated Press

Sugar Balancer is one of the products that was cited by the FDA.

Warning Letters

Companies and products that were singled out by the FDA:

Enhance Nutraceutical’s Diaberex

Glytain Internal Remedies’ Glytain

Health King Enterprise & Balanceuticals Group Inc.’s Sugar Balancer

Magni Co.’s MagniLife Diabetic Neuropathy Foot Cream

Nature’s Health Supply Diabetes Daily Care

Naturecast Products’ Eradicator

Source: Food and Drug Administration

Another significant issue is the lack of labels. Many prescription-drug labels disclose side effects, including some serious ones, and without them, consumers can’t fully understand the risk-benefit balance of the drugs involved.

Diabetes, which afflicts nearly 26 million Americans, can cause heart disease, blindness and kidney failure, and may lead to lower-extremity amputations if the malady isn’t kept under control. The products at issue include some aimed at treating those complications.

Many of them, the FDA said, are sold with such claims as “prevents and treats diabetes,” and “can replace medicine in the treatment of diabetes.” They also include ayurvedic medicines and prescription drugs for diabetes sold by online pharmacies without a prescription.

Among the products and companies in the warning letters were Sugar Balancer from Health King Enterprise & Balanceuticals Group Inc.; Diabetes Daily Care from Nature’s Health Supply Inc.; MagniLife Diabetic Neuropathy Foot Cream from Magni Co.; Diaberex from Enhance Nutraceutical; Glytain from Glytain Internal Remedies; and Eradicator from Naturecast Products.

Lindsay Rohnke, general manager of Magni, said the company was “looking into any potential marketing violations, and we will make any necessary changes to keep MagniLife Diabetic Neuropathy Foot Cream available to our customers.”

Health King didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Health King website on Monday said Sugar Balancer is formulated “in an effort to maintain healthy blood and urine sugar levels,” but that such statements haven’t been evaluated by the FDA, and that “this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

Diabetes Daily Care was being sold Monday on Amazon.com as AMZN -0.70%a “natural diabetes cure.” A man who answered the phone at Nature’s Health Supply declined to comment.